Timorese can no longer reclaim assets

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara: East Timorese refugees in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province can no longer claim any assets in East Timor, as Thursday was the deadline for the refugees to do so back in the country of their birth.

Stanis Tefa, the secretary of the East Nusa Tenggara Task Force for Disasters and Refugees, said that the government of East Timor did not extend the deadline for refugees to reclaim assets.

He said that some 9,000 East Timorese refugees are living in NTT, and that any assets that they may have had a claim to now are legally owned by the government of East Timor.

The refugees are the remainder of those who fled across the border, most of whom are believed to be former pro-Jakarta militia members, after a scorched earth campaign in response to the landslide victory by pro-independence voters in 1999. -- JP